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When Is Sex “Consensual”?

The notorious ex-hockey coach and player agent David Frost is pleading not guilty and in the end, Judge Geoffrey Griffin of the Ontario Court of Justice may decide that, if Mr. Frost did anything, it wasn’t criminal.

But the testimony of a young woman here yesterday indelibly marked Mr. Frost at the least as a perverse creep who, she said, had sex with his players’ girlfriends, directed them down to the last sordid detail in threesomes and arguably was as interested in seeing his players naked as he was the girls.

The woman, now 28, was testifying about the time she was 16, the new junior hockey team had come to her eastern Ontario town and was the biggest thing in it, and how she went from a being a virgin one month to having sex with her boyfriend and his then-29-year-old coach the next.

Now 41, Mr. Frost is charged with four counts of sexual exploitation involving two of his former charges when he coached the now defunct Quinte Hawks in nearby Deseronto, Ont.

The allegations are rooted in the fact that as the coach, he was in a position of trust or authority over vulnerable then-teenagers. Comparable charges relating to the girls, including the woman who testified yesterday, were withdrawn because Mr. Frost wasn’t similarly a figure of authority to them.

The case is further complicated by the fact that the two players, who can’t be identified because of a mandatory publication ban, are not being called by prosecutors and apparently deny anything happened, and because the then-girls who allegedly participated admit, as did yesterday’s witness, that the sex was consensual.

Where there is coercion used with respect to young women, I can’t think how we can call it “consensual sex”. The Court, by the way, did not and would not issue a publication ban with respect to the names of the young women involved. The Globe and Mail argued against the ban and then decided to publish only this young woman’s first name. Just as long as we’re clear who’s in charge, right? Asses.

There’s a problem with the law here:

Someone under the age of 18 cannot legally consent to have sex with a person in a position of authority such as a teacher, health care provider, coach, lawyer or family member

Surely it’s clear that if David Frost can be charged with having exploited the young men who he was coaching, surely the same goes for the young women he involved in the exploitation. The law needs to be clarified.